Mother Earth’s New Curriculum~Because Kindergarteners Are Smarter Than the Rest of Us

I interrupt our series on overconsumption, to bring you this special message in honor of World Environment Day! (Spread the word~ we can’t reverse climate change today, but we can at least use today to spread education about how to change our unsustainable ways one habit, one day at a time!) I want to talk today about a system, a system I believe needs to be updated to be relevant to the pressing issues we live with today. That system is, yes, you guessed it… education. I believe there are many things that researchers have discovered about the way kids learn and what type of content really matters, that show we might have our priorities a bit skewed in this realm as well. I’m not about to begin a discussion of all the things that should have been long-ago reformed, but I will suggest for you several subjects I believe to be missing in our standard educational curricula. Perhaps, education administrators and school boards once thought these subjects to be things kids should be learning at home… Perhaps, kids should be learning these things at home… But, the point is, they’re largely not. In light of climate change, endless wars, social inequality, world hunger, and the myriad of other issues our earth is plagued with (largely our fault), I would imagine Mother Earth would appreciate us adding the following subjects to our schools:

1. Environmental Studies

"Environmental Studies 101" Photography by Author

Well, if we, adults, aren’t even aware of half the things we do that are destroying our earth, how can we expect our kids to know any better? And how can we ever change our ways, if the information is not accessible, and if we don’t spend time studying the information that is available? How can we expect green technology to come up with innovative solutions when our great minds are working on nuclear power plants? We can’t improve our habits, if we don’t learn why change is important and how we can change. The earth mother simply can’t sustain our living habits for much longer. And we certainly aren’t going to evolve fast enough to become “Climate Kid” in time:

2. Cultural Appreciation

"Cultural Studies" Photograph by Author

Next, I think cultural studies should be high on the list. And for all these subjects, I mean that they should be in the first grade agenda, not just in high school or college, when we have already set patterns for our behavior. I feel, considering how embedded into our cultural habitus (the internalization of our cultural habits) things like racism, religious intolerance, and environmental irresponsibility still unfortunately are (at least in America), we should be taught about how cultures develop, how they influence our actions, how we shape our cultures, and how we can maintain diversity despite globalization. In this age of global interdependence, a subject with such an interdisciplinary potential to teach us a holistic kind of critical thinking~ seeking the meaning behind our beliefs, our actions, our economics, our politics, our habits, our religious traditions, our social structures, all under the umbrella of culture~ is absolutely vital to our self-awareness, to realizing the importance of community, to understanding the significance of contextualizing our social issues, and to appreciating diversity instead of waiting for socialization to teach us xenophobia, intolerance to difference, and social irresponsibility.

3. Social Skills, Rhetoric, Communication… 

"Communication Studies" Photograph by Author

Yes, I believe that we should  be teaching our kids a thing or two about communicating while they’re growing up. Have you ever tried to change a bad habit? A struggle, isn’t it? Then, you know exactly why these skills should be learned early. It’s easier to teach my kitten to paw at the bell hanging from the door when it wants to go outside, than to teach my nana’s older rescued cat to stop scratching the door when it needs some fresh air. Communication is necessary to run a good business, to interact with others at our jobs, to work with our communities on projects, and to have good relationships. Along with this, of course, cultural studies should dip in and teach us about other modes of communication in other cultures, so that we don’t go being rude when we visit other countries and we learn what is important to other cultures and why.

4. Conflict Resolution

"Conflict Resolution" Photograph by Author

After our kids learn how to communicate, next on their schedules should be a class on conflict resolution, how sharing is important, and the recognition that what we want isn’t always what’s best for our community and our Mother Earth. The older we get, the less important sharing seems to be on our priority list. Come to think of it, if we learned to share in all areas of life, not just our colored pencils and cheerios, it might lead us to better economic policies and more community collaboration. As my academic area of expertise (if I can be so bold as to say I have one) happens to be violence, I have thought about quite a few ideas for my future “Manifesto of Peace and Holistic Justice.” But each one of those ideas happens to rest on our learning how to think about the whole community (local and global) and not just our individual selves and our nuclear families… In order for us to confront social and environmental justice issues, we have to learn to put our wants in context with other people’s wants and the needs of other living things. Like our spending habits, we also need to learn to put needs ahead of our wants. A simple concept, but somehow in its translation to political policies, the principle gets murky and lost in political mumbo-jumbo that supports the interests of those who can pay for their voices to be heard. Maybe, if we spent 12 years of our lives learning about negotiation, sharing, and peaceful interaction, we might start changing our minds about how to run our governments and when to wage wars.

5. Media Literacy & Applied Ethics

"Media Literacy" Photograph by Author

Finally, because what we learn doesn’t always translate into how we act and because the media has a tendency of reporting only what’s convenient to the editors’ or advertisers’ agendas, our kids should be learning how to read and watch the news, deciphering truth from slant and seeking various different sources to get a wider, more complete picture of the event in question. But not only should kids be taught to critically assess bias and manipulative persuasion techniques, they should also be taught to look at ways to transform media so that it upholds a higher standard of ethics instead of political/financial biases. Ethics should be a stronger part of the school curriculum, in general, and applied projects should be incorporated more, so that what we learn in textbooks becomes more easily viewed as relevant and we begin to practice the principles we are taught. As my beloved piano teacher used to remind me every week, “Practice makes perfect.”

We should have all been taught these subjects in school, but while we try to improve our own ways, we can also, at least, usher in a new generation that has a much broader understanding of our social and environmental issues and hopefully acts accordingly. We need to encourage divergent thinking as an essential part of creativity, which is the only way we can come up with new and better solutions to all our problems. Sadly, mostly, we just conform ourselves with learning textbook definitions and thinking within the boundaries others give us. In an RSA animate lecture, Sir Ken Robinson reports that in a longitudinal study of creative thinking (citing Beth Jarman and George Land in their book Break Point and Beyond) , 98% of 1500 kindergarteners tested at genius level. When they were retested 5 years later, only 32% of the same students scored at genius level. Another 5 years later, only 10% scored at genius level. Our creativity, unfortunately, seems to get curtailed the longer we stay in school. 😦 How are we ever supposed to come up with solutions to climate change and the recession if our creativity is not nurtured? Perhaps, as Robinson suggests, we should stop teaching that there’s only one answer (at the back of the textbook), and allow that we may not have all the answers and that there may be other better ways to solving social ills. I do not have a Ph.D. in Education, so I do not profess to have all the answers either, but I can imagine that if Mother Earth ran the school systems, she’d probably start with including these subjects. For those interested, below is Robinson’s speech on changing educational paradigms, with other ideas about educational reform.

Happy World Environment Day, all! Remember to do something in honor of our earth mother and remind others to do the same. And we will start off the new week with Tips on Buying Organic.

~Zulema Ibarra

Stop Being Such a Copy-Cat: Buy Local!

"The Copy Cat" (Borrowed from: http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/09/12/copy-cat/)

So, what’s the big fuss about buying local? The local shops can be so expensive, and one-stop stores are much more convenient and can even save on gas, right? With our non-stop, go-go-go schedules, it can seem so much more convenient to buy at the cheaper (in quality & price) big copy-cat megastores with dull, copy-cat items on characterless shelves. (Honestly, I feel I turn into a robot every time I shop at one.) But if we really take care to assess the true costs of that $20 bookshelf, we will find that it isn’t actually cheaper and it isn’t in the long-run convenient for us, after all. Let’s look at some of the reasons. (If you don’t have time to read through this post, please go straight to the short animation clip at the bottom… it sums up most of what I cover here.)

1. When you buy local, you have a better chance of knowing what you’re buying.

Let me first clarify that when I say “local,” I am specifically referring to local, independently-owned businesses.

"Shopping Trip" (Borrowed from: http://funnytim.tempwebpage.com/playground/gallery.php?tag=buylocal)

When you shop at a local store, chances are, the products are either made in your town or you can easily ask the owner about the manufacturing process. When you buy from a large multi-million-dollar corporation, chances are, you don’t want to know about the manufacturing process or, even if you do, the managers (because you won’t ever find the owner) won’t be as happy to answer your question. Local stores generally tend to sell items of higher quality precisely because that is the only way they can compete with larger corporations (and many times because the owners take pride in work they produced).  So, yes, you can buy the $30 dresser at the Copy-Cat Corporation and end up trashing it and having to buy a new one, because it was made of cheap plywood and materials that were not made to last, or you can save a little more to get a lasting dresser at local used furniture shops or local new furniture shops.

2. When you buy local, you become a champion for your community/local economy. 

Pat yourself on the back, because when you buy local, you are helping your local community to thrive. Your money stays within your community, which helps keep more jobs and revenue in your town. It is not that we shouldn’t want to help other communities out. We should. We are all inter-connected, after all. However, just like with personal finances, you have to put some money in your savings, before you begin donating it somewhere else. Otherwise, you end up broke, and can’t donate anymore. So, put some money into your hometown’s account, before going to spend any left-over’s elsewhere. This goes for traveling too. Before exploring other cities, we should explore our hometowns. It might surprise us what little treasures we can come across. The best moments aren’t had in fancy faraway places, after all, they happen in the everyday community of the people and things we know and love.

3. When you buy local, you express your uniqueness, and your community gets to stand out a little more. 

Part of the appeal of buying at Copy-Cat Corporations is that you can go in there and know exactly what you’re going to come out with. But wait a minute, didn’t we all complain about having to wear uniforms in grade school? Why are we opting for uniform now? Because it’s easier? Doesn’t it also make us a little more like carbon copy clones?  Do we really all want to wear the same things and have the same decorations in our homes? I doubt it. I believe that the human spirit yearns to assert its distinctiveness, as much as it yearns to belong. Belonging, however, does not need to come at the expense of our individuality.  Local, independently-owned stores tend to offer singular designs, custom-made features, and much more creativity. Smaller stores also make room for the existence of more stores, with different niches to fill, building your community into a diverse patch-work collective, full of character and charm. Who wouldn’t want to live in a place with options, with imagination, with style, talent, and originality? That can only happen when the community atmosphere is ripe, when there is room for different and bold, when there is inspiration for artistry and ingenuity.

4. When you don’t buy local, you must also factor in the invisible costs. 

Yes, I am talking about those things we often ignore: the environment and the labor costs. Imported items take up energy/resources, because they have to be transported long distances. There are also environmental costs in the processing and packaging stages of production, where harmful chemicals can be used and/or emitted and resources exploited. This includes human resources. When companies outsource, it is because they wish to cut down production costs and maximize their profits. According to globalissues.org:

“when it comes to a country trying to impose some environmental or societal considerations and legislation on multinational corporations, they just move to a country where the rules and regulations aren’t as strict.”

Somehow, corporations think that if they can’t get away with labor and business practices in one place because their policies are inhumane or unsafe or unfriendly to the environment, it is somehow okay to continue those policies elsewhere.  I don’t know how this makes sense, but when profits are all that matter, I suppose priorities are also vastly different (and, in my opinion, skewed). You can’t care about your environment and the plight of workers around the world without counting these costs into your grocery expenses. And when you count these costs, suddenly a cheap stop at your local copy-cat corporation is not so cheap anymore.

Is it in our power to change these larger-scale problems? Yes, I believe so. It’s like that South Park episode about “Wall-mart,” where the town discovers that the key to shutting down “Wall-mart” is, in fact, themselves.  When Walmart employees in Quebec in 2005 threatened to unionize, for example, a bustling Walmart decided to shut down before signing an agreement withe UFCW (United Food & Commercial Workers) union, claiming that the store was not economically viable and was not meeting the Walmart business plan, according to the Bloomberg Businessweek. Businesses are open, because we allow them to stay in business. It is ultimately up to us what we want our communities to look like. We have to start with a vision. So, what is your vision?

We repeat the main points of what we learned, with this quick Buy Local animation:

When Ice Cream is More Important than Clean H2O: The Scale of Inequality & Privilege

"Southern Nights" Photograph by Author

On a late night, like tonight, when all the world is still, and I open my door to gaze at the night sky and listen to the sound of the woods and the crickets nearby, I imagine I can hear the Earth Mother heaving a long, tired sigh. Like every other mother, I’m sure she worries about tomorrow and what will become of her children. Yesterday, as I finished up my evening run, I witnessed a sleepy tangerine sun, yawning as a flock of birds framed its setting portrait. It was a goodnight whisper, like only La Madre Tierra can give.  I realized how very little time I actually spend appreciating the gifts of this Earth anymore. Then and there, I vowed I would go for a walk everyday this summer with no other agenda but to befriend the earth again and take in her splendor. In his book, The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto, Ivan Petrella offers a poignant reminder of how humanity has balanced out its priorities. I’ve read it before, but there are some passages that always shoot straight for the heart, and for me, this falls under that category. He moved me to reassess my other priorities as well, and I’d like to share the passage with you:

“It would take 6 billion dollars of additional yearly investment to ensure basic education in all developing countries;
                                                   VS.
8 billion dollars a year are spent on cosmetics in the U.S.

It would take 9 billion dollars to ensure clean water & sanitation for all;
                                                               VS.
11 billion are spent on ice cream in Europe.

"Guilty Priorities" Photograph by Author

It would take 13 billion dollars to guarantee basic health & nutrition for every person in the developing world;
                                                                VS.
17 billion are spent on pet food in Europe and the U.S. combined.

Petrella goes on to say that

0.1% of the world’s income… would cover the bill for basic education, health, nutrition, clean water, and sanitation for every single person on the planet.

Imagine that?

Yet, currently, while the world’s richest nations possess only 1/4th of the world’s population, they consume 70% of the world’s energy, 75% of its metals, 85% of its wood, & 60% of its food. (p. 17)

I guess one main ingredient to solving our over-consumption crisis is not just to stop consuming less, or consuming more consciously, but also to start giving back (time and money) to help restore balance, to help heal the earth and humanity from this mess we’ve created. I think, given the above data, we can probably stop making a big fuss about using a little less and giving a little more. It’s a small price to pay for all the gifts this earth has given us. In light of where we lie on the scale of inequality and privilege, it’s only fair. Don’t you think?

Somber Reminder of Trash & Glimmer of Hope for Green Plastic

Modified by Author. Original from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thestuff/2646605599/sizes/m/in/photostream/

According to the Environmental Protection Agency,

“In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage. This means that each adult will leave a legacy of 90,000 lbs. of trash for his or her children.”

When we see pictures like the one on the right, we wonder to ourselves if the problem can even be fixed. We need only see an image of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to bring back that old overwhelmed feeling of doom. Sometimes, though, I think we need that feeling of being unsettled and insecure. When we feel all comfortable and cozy, we often slip back into old patterns of ignoring the consequences of our actions. So, the following clip (a talk by Charles Moore, who first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) is a reminder of what happens to the convenient disposables we buy… not so disposable, after all.

How can we ever reverse what we have done? I don’t know. But don’t worry, I won’t leave you entirely dismal today. People all over the world, from individuals to large groups, ARE looking for solutions, for things we can do right now to stop continuing the damage on our beautiful earth mother, and she is beautiful, isn’t she?

Borrowed from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sathishcj/4461979052/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Just recently, I am happy to report that the 2011 Cade Prize went to

“Florida Sustainables (formerly Sestar Sustainables), which has invented a plastic capable of biodegrading in 5-10 years, compared to 1000 years for other plastics.”

According to The Gainesville Sun,

“Florida Sustainables has licensed a polymer invented by University of Florida graduate student Ryan Martin and associate chemistry professor Stephen Miller…They have devised a way to synthesize polymers called polyesteracetals, providing the strength of petroleum-based plastics lacking in other ‘green’ plastics made from PLAs — or polylactic acid.”

The article just came out last week, and this really sounds like exciting news! Of course, it will take a while before it will reach the marketing stage. But imagine that? Investing in green research may actually provide us with answers (an ever-so slight hint of sarcasm here)! (The research was funded by a National Science Foundation grant.) So, ladies and gentlemen, there may be hope for humanity and our mother earth after all. And while hope remains, we have work to do!

Join me for more tips on modifying our consumption habits at home tomorrow (since time has escaped me today :/). I will be covering Tips on Buying Recycled.

Over-consumption~Where does the change begin?

All of us know this country has a problem with over-consumption. We might ignore the extent of the problem, because the problem is so complex that it seems there’s no simple solution, but we know it’s there– sulking around us, a dark ugly reality, silently hidden behind the glamour of advertisements and our distorted perceptions of what is a need and what is a waste. I know there’s a problem with over-consumption, but rarely do I think of myself as the culprit. It’s not my fault. It’s the system’s fault. And I didn’t create the system. That was somebody else’s mess. It’s something that I’m stuck with, something too big to change, something I can’t do anything about. Unfortunately, the overwhelming nature of many of the world’s problems causes us to freeze up, to don a spirit of nonchalance and numbness, disassociating ourselves from how relevant and personal these issues really are in our lives. And this is why I watch documentaries and read books about social issues– not to be reminded of things that overwhelm me with frustration and profound sadness, but to search within them for a glimpse of hope. I study these issues to understand them better, to see the connection from their global impact to my very ordinary life, so that I can figure out ways (no matter how small) to live a little better (for myself, for my community, and for this beautiful hurting earth).

No, I did not create the system that is in place today; but I do study Anthropology (the study of humans and cultures), and I do read my theory books. And in the theories of Bourdieu and Giddens, I found a bit of inspiration and a sombering sense of responsibility.   In their brilliant works, they end up explaining a very easy concept to grasp: you and me influence the system, as much as the system influences you and me. In other words, we are constantly recreating this society, this social system we are a part of. The system, like you and me, is not static. We change as it changes, but it also changes as we change! That means,

1. Society can influence the way we see things. (In a society of hope, we can have hope; in a society that ignores pressing social issues, we can be easily distracted or disillusioned).
2. We can change society! (One person’s actions never go unnoticed. I affect the world around me, even when I don’t notice it. And the more self-aware I am, the more I can be responsible in my actions.)

And that is the inspiration behind this blog. To personalize these large-scale issues, and help us affect change, first in our homes, then, in our communities. And, through connecting our efforts with other like-minded people, we can change the world. What does this have to do with overconsumption and waste? Well, it’s exactly where we begin. An attitude change. How can we ever do anything if we don’t try, after all? And how can we try, if we’re constantly telling ourselves we can’t do anything? The key, I think, is realizing that we can’t solve our issues in a day (I tried, it doesn’t work :P), and we can’t solve our issues by ourselves. “Immediately” and “all at once” are recipes for disaster. They are elements of this crazy, fast-paced consumerist society we live in. They will take us straight to failure, and burn-out, and yes, that oh-so-familiar numbness. But we can make a difference one day a time, and we can reform our habits, working on them one at a time. I call it piece-meal grassroots change. A very personal step-by-step commitment to increased self-awareness. It extends to  how we treat others, to how we prioritize our schedules, to how we construct our budgets. It extends to the attitude we give the world when we wake up in the morning.

This week, the focus of my posts will be on over-consumption– a reminder of its effects, things we can work towards, and things we can do now. I leave you with this twenty-minute poignant video by Anne Leonard, “The Story of Stuff.”  Some of you may already be well familiar with it. It’s been out for long enough… but every time, I watch it, I get a new resolve to try again… to watch myself when I have the impulse to buy something I really don’t need…to make sure, as much as I can afford it, to buy locally, to buy organic, to buy recycled, to buy less. It contextualizes the problem of overconsumption much better than I can probably do. So, instead of re-inventing the wheel, I’m going to ask you to do your two-cents for change today: stop your busy life for at least a few minutes and watch this. It’s captivating, it’s very clear, and it’s personal.

For more information on this project, visit The Story of Stuff website.